e boy does go to school; but the whole boy is seldom
educated after he gets there. A fraction of him is attended to in the
evening, however, and a fraction on Sunday. He takes himself in hand
on Saturdays and in vacation time, and accomplishes a good deal,
notwithstanding the fact that his sight is a trifle impaired already,
and his hearing grown a little dull, so that Dame Nature works at a
disadvantage, and begins, doubtless, to dread boys who have enjoyed
too much "schooling," since it seems to leave them in a state of coma.

Our general scheme of education furthers mental development with
considerable success. The training of the hand is now being
laboriously woven into it; but, even when that is accomplished, we
shall still be working with imperfect aims, for the stress laid upon
heart-culture is as yet in no way commensurate with its gravity. We
know, with that indolent, fruitless half-knowledge that passes for
knowing, that "out of the heart are the issues of life." We feel,
not with the white heat of absolute conviction, but placidly and
indifferently, as becomes the dwellers in a world of change, that
"conduct is three fourths of life;" but we do not crystallize this
belief into action. We "dream," not "do" the "noble things." The
kindergarten does not fence off a half hour each day for moral
culture, but keeps it in view every moment of every day. Yet it is
never obtrusive; for the mental faculties are being addressed at the
same time, and the body strengthened for its special work.

With the methods generally practiced in the family and school, I fail
to see how we can expect any more delicate sense of right and wrong,
any clearer realization of duty, any greater enlightenment of
conscience, any higher conception of truth, than we now find in the
world. I care not what view you take of humanity, whether you have
Calvinistic tendencies and believe in the total depravity of infants,
or whether you are a disciple of Wordsworth and apostrophize the child
as a

"Mighty prophet! Seer blest,
On whom those truths do rest
Which we are toiling all our lives to find;"

if you are a fair-minded man or woman, and have had much experience
with young children, you will be compelled to confess that they
generally have a tolerably clear sense of right and wrong, needing
only gentle guidance to choose the right when it is put before them. I
say most, not all, children; for some are poor, blurred human scrawl